The chair of the council for Justice & Peace of the Irish Catholic Bishop’s conference is speaking out about Christian persecution around the world, saying that 11 Christians are killed every hour for their faith in Christ.

Bishop John McAreavey cited a Pew Research survey showing Christianity is the most prosecuted religion around the world with persecution against them reported in 110 countries.

“Many of these countries have significant trade links with Ireland. Persecution is increasing in China. In North Korea a quarter of the country’s Christians live in forced labour camps. Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the Maldives all feature in the 10 worst places to be Christian,” McAreavey said.  “According to the International Society for Human Rights, a non-religious organization, 80 percent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today are directed against Christians.”

McAreavey said that the persecution of Christians in the Middle East is “a threat to our common humanity” and that the stability of the entire planet is at risk because of the violence in the region.  He also condemned Western leaders who are not taking steps to help persecuted Christians.

“Perhaps because of a fear of being seen as less than aggressively secular in their own country,” he said, many governments of majority Christian countries in the West seem reluctant to give direct aid to churches and religious minorities.”

McAreavey defined the loss of religious freedom and persecution as something that “can run from subtle cultural exclusion of the religious voice from the public square and refusal to accommodate reasonable differences of conscience to active discrimination, forced displacement, exploitation and loss of life.”